Chapter Text
The sound of tools cranking filled the staff room, two empty mugs accompanied Wise in this late night Wednesday as he fruitlessly tried to repair Eous’ connection module. Their last commission ended up in a run-in with a strong Ethereal, resulting in various pieces of rubble flying across the hollow.
And so it happened that one of those pieces hit Eous... and damaged some of his parts.
They managed to get him back home safely, but the damage of the impact needed to be fixed soon, or they would lose out on a very big number of commissions and that meant their income would significantly go down, normally they would’ve been able to get by that month by making a couple of cuts in spending or saving water and electricity but now that they had Fairy, their power bill had skyrocketed to a point where not even trying to survive by only drinking water would help and Eous was their only bangboo equiped for proxy work, so the others wouldn't be able to cover for him.
“No luck?”
Belle enters the room with a couple of sandwiches on a plate, Wise gets up from the chair and joins his sister on the couch. Belle hands him one of the sandwiches before taking a bite out of hers, Wise takes a bite before looking back at the piece and shakes his head and continues to eat his sandwich. Belle sighs and takes out her phone.
“Looks like we’re going have to go shopping tomorrow.”
She logs into the interknot to place an order for a replacement. The seller sends a message with the market's location and time for them to meet up the next day. The siblings decide to call it a night and head up to their rooms; Belle lays down on her bed, her eyelids growing heavier by the second, just a few moments before she falls asleep her phone buzzes. She reaches for her phone as her eyes slowly open, the sudden brightness of the screen makes her let out a small hiss. After focusing her eyesight, she sees a couple of texts from her girlfriend, Zhu Yuan.
Zhu <3 (10:20 p.m.): Hey, I just finished my shift.
Zhu <3 (10:21 p.m.): Ah, I probably woke you up, sorry.
Belle (10:21 p.m.): Don't worry, I wasn't asleep yet
Belle (10:21 p.m.): How was your day?
Zhu <3 (10:22 p.m.): It was a little busy, there have been a lot of reports of robberies around 5th street.
Zhu <3 (10:22 p.m.): Please remember to check your locks. And your windows.
Belle (10:22 p.m.): Oh, I've got nothing to worry about
Belle (10:22 p.m.): Specially when I have a certain beautiful and strong pubsec officer to protect me ;)
A few moments pass with a typing bubble appearing and disappearing on the screen, Belle imagines a flustered Zhu Yuan trying to text a reply and lets out a small giggle.
"So cute."
Zhu <3 (10:25 p.m.): You can count on me always, but I still would be more at ease with that.
Zhu <3 (10:25 p.m.): By the way, are you free tomorrow morning?
Zhu <3 (10:25 p.m.): A new cafeteria opened up and I was thinking we could have breakfast together?
Belle (10:25 p.m.): I would love to, but I have to run some errands with Wise early tomorrow :(
Belle (10:26 p.m.): Maybe we could go on Friday?
Zhu <3 (10:26 p.m.): Sounds good, goodnight Belle. Love you.
Belle (10:26 p.m.): Love you too, goodnight <3
The sun still hasnt risen on the horizon and streets are mostly empty when Wise and Belle drive towards one of New Eridu's smaller ports to get the module for Eous, the song on the radio gets interrupted by Fairy's voice. Belle stiffles a yawn and stretches her arms, trying to shake the sleepiness away.
"Master, the location provided by the seller is a warehouse that on public knowledge, operates as a typical facility for exporting and importing various goods, however according to data collected on the interknot it majorly houses several black market deals on a regular basis."
"What are their regular deals?"
"88% consists of illegal and rare components, 8% weapons, 2% of illegally modified guns and 2% of forged documents. There was an attempt to introduce exotic animals but the head broker prohibited it, according to behavior on the interknot it can be assumed that he loves animals."
Belle lets out a small laugh as Wise takes the final turn to where they'll park their car.
"A master criminal but not a monster, huh?"
Wise slows down as he enters the parking lot and looks at the radio.
"How is it's reputation?"
"The sellers generally maintain a reputation of keeping their end of the deals they take, however, there are a few that do try to scam their buyers. My calculations indicate that there is a 90% of the deal being completed satisfyingly in the warehouse. Good luck."
The radio starts playing normally once again before Wise turns off the car.
"Well, time to put up your hood. Let's go."
The place were their seller would meet with them looks like a normal port warehouse on the outside, various crates and containers coming in and out. The siblings enter the warehouse, discreetly signaling one of the workers that notices them, he takes them to the selling area after being told where the seller would be; they navigate the small crowd, whispers of deals in the air and items being discreetly exchanged for even rarer items or money. In the back they spot a tall man stacking boxes full of repair pieces, he turns around and claps his hands.
"Ah, you must be the ones that ordered that connection module. Wait here, I'll go get it."
The man walks towards a crate on the back, Belle looks around the place as she waits, looking at how many people come in and out. A woman in a cheap looking fur coat gives a bag full of money to a seller fully covered by a cloak and receives a suitcase and a small bag, a bird thiren hurriedly checks a crate while a man in a suit looks impatiently at him. Nearby them a scrawly looking man, is walking hurriedly towards the exit glancing over his shoulder as he slips out.
"Hmm, maybe they got spooked? I remember feeling nervous the first time we bought something this way."
Inside a dimly lit conference room in Lumina Square's police station, Zhu Yuan addresses the officers and detectives assigned to the upcoming raid to one of their confirmed black market deal centers. She presents images of many of the sellers and recurring buyers alongside a small description of previous legal offenses and a list of the most sold items. She turns to their informant who was sitting on a corner of the room, nervously tapping his fingers on his leg. He quickly gets up and takes out his phone, he walks to the front and projects the pictures he took on the screen.
"This is Matt, our informant, who has confirmed the layout of the warehouse. He will now talk to us about it."
Zhu Yuan sits down next to Qingyi, sipping a bit of water to refresh her throat after talking for 15 minutes. Matt stutters a little on the beginning but as he switches across the images of the outside of the warehouse he speaks more fluidly, even answering a couple of questions from the detectives. Then he switches to the images he took that morning on the inside of the warehouse. Zhu Yuan looks at the new pictures, suitcases being switched, a woman counting a wad of money, crates with weapons, components-
"What...?"
As she squints at the current picture, her pulse quickens. On the corner of the current picture, despite the blurriness, she sees part of a very familiar looking face. The familiar teal eyes that she has got lost into so many times-
"Maybe it's just another person with a similar eye color, that can happen!"
The little strands of dark blue hair, framing her face as she seems to look around in slight curiosity...It's unmistakable.
"Many people have dark blue hair. It can also be the light or the hood she's wearing..."
The more she looks at the picture, the more her internal denial frays: Belle was in the warehouse that morning, she was having deals in the black market buying, or maybe even selling, god-knows-what. Her mind wanders back to last night's conversation.
I have to run some errands with Wise early tomorrow.
A cold weight sets on her stomach as she feels herself starting to sweat, such an innocent sentence, she would've never even imagined that it could mean this. The voices of her coworkers faded into a indiscernible jumble of noise on the background; images of their time together, all the late night conversations, embraces, the warmth. All of it colliding with what she was seeing on the screen.
Is it a misunderstanding? Is she in danger? Are Belle and Wise being exhorted to do some lowly criminal's dirty work?... Is Belle in deeper than Zhu Yuan realizes?
She's taken out of her hurricane of thoughts when she feels Qingyi's hand slightly shaking her shoulder.
"Captain, you have a call from... the inspector."
"...I- What?"
Qingyi leans a bit forward, whispering. Handling her a phone that doesn't have an incoming call.
"You're getting paler by the second, go get some air."
"But-"
"Go, I'll take care of wrapping this up."
Next thing she knows she's splashing some water on her face in the restroom. Her vest and jacket carefully placed between the washbasins, the A/C unit fills her lungs with cold air as she takes a deep breath to steady her heart. Her grip on the edge of the washbasin tightens, making her knuckles go white as she steels herself. She puts on her vest and jacket, she has to get to the bottom of this...but how?
Her badge feels heavier on her chest.